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Showing posts from July, 2008

DM Tools - Heromachine

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Ulf Ironfist Lady Flame Bergin Heromachine is a nice little app that's been around for a long time. It's especially great for DMs who aren't very artistic (like me) that want to add more visual flare to their games. With a dizzying array of options, any user is just a few dozen mouse clicks away from building a character or NPC to printout and show at the next session. You start off choosing a body type (male or female and slender/bulky) and then selecting from various menus everything from boots, bracers, cloaks, weapons, etc. While Heromachine isn't specifically geared for fantasy characters, there are a good enough number of options to render a variety of fantasy types. Characters can be printed out and the data to build the character can be saved into a simple text file. Here's the text data files for the characters above. Note: there seems to be an issue where whatever is in the character's left hand is not properly save/loaded and doesn't actually app

Dragonlance Comics (Issue 8) - Raistlin's Pawn

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City of Death This last issue of the Raistlin's Pawn arc picks up a moment after the end of the last issue . Kalathan is lying on the ground in pain and while Myrella and Gnatch are trying to help him, Raistlin is walking away unconcerned for the dark elf. Kalathan recovers and explains the dark mage's actions of hiding his thoughts of betraying the goddess Takhisis for a time within Kalathan, and compelling the elf to be in Neraka in time for Raistlin to "remember" and enact his plan. Elsewhere, Raistlin, Caramon, and Berem are in a chamber under the temple. Raistlin keeps his brother at bay while Berem, in an attempt to free his imprisoned sister, impales himself on the foundation stone--the gateway Takhisis uses to enter the world. Berem's actions cause the temple structure to weaken and begin to collapse. Everyone makes it out of the temple safely. Once outside, Kalathan confronts Raistlin and learns a dark secret. The dark mage reveals that Kalathan is actual

Darkness and Light: The Serpent, and the Statue

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The party made camp above ground atop the ruins of the Temple of the Flaming Fist. They spent the night resting and treating their wounds from the barbarian attack they were lucky to have survived. * Bergin cast divine spells to heal the most wounded members of the party, * while Hunter used his herbal skills to treat the others. * Adow studdied the books and papers he'd found in one of rooms below, * while Greybear, Theo, and Jeswin helped make camp and prepare dinner. That night, while Hunter was on watch, he saw a wounded eagle being swatted around by a "playful" bear cub. He was able to befriend the little animal and send him on his way before the cub did any further damage to the eagle. With great skill, Hunter removed an unusually large black thorn that had temporarily crippled the bird. The rest of the evening passed by without further disruption. The next day the party returned to exploring the underground complex, still searching for the Gem of Amara. The party

Dragonlance Comics (Issue 7) - Raistlin's Pawn

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City of Death This issue opens with a beautiful splash page of Takhisis talking with Raistlin. She mentions that she would know at once if he was plotting to betray her. As he reaffirms his loyality to the goddess, we see Kalathan in the middle of another one of his "posessions" and fighting with the gnome and Myrella until he regains his senses. The three are just outside of Neraka and can see the twisted temple and two flying citadels in the center of town. As they make their way closer, the run across and fight a patrol of baaz draconians. Myrella realizes that Kalathan is being drawn to this city and uses a detect magic spell to reveal that the dark elf is under some enchantment. Using a tunnel to sneak into the city, the party fights a purple worm before exiting just outside the temple. As they sneak inside, they come to the main audience chamber and see Raistlin. In the center of the huge room, a half-elf and another warrior fighting over a crown. Just then, the trumpe

Dragonlance Comics (Issue 6) - Raistlin's Pawn

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Wayfarers This issue opens with Gnatch and Kalathan journeying on foot (having given up the horse they were riding in the previous issue )to the city of Kalaman when they come across the dead bodies, scattered weapons and other tell-tale signs of battle. While looking over the scene, they are confronted and fight the river pirates responsible of the carnage. The elf puts up a good fight, but is overwhelmed in the end. Before he is killed, a wave of arrows wash over the area, killing the pirates, but not Gnatch and Kalathan. The soldiers responsible for the rescue (and those the river pirates previously killed) turn out to be part of the Dragonarmy. The dark elf joins their group and "kills" Gnatch by throwing him in the nearby river as a test of his ruthlessness. As they leave, Gnatch comes out with the help of a female river pirate who survived the arrow assault. Together the woman and the gnome head to Kalaman. Meanwhile, in the city of Kalaman, Raistlin prepares to leave a

Site Updates

Just a quick note about some site updates... * I added some subscribe buttons (to the left) * I added a blog roll, replacing the feeds that were previously there. If you know of a good D&D or Dragonlance related blog, post a comment and I'll add it to the site (if it's appropriate). * I added a feed for my twitter account "dndblog". I'll be using this to post random bits too small for a blog post, but this can also be used for more real time discussions. Hope you like the new features...

Dragonlance Comics (Issue 5) - Raistlin's Pawn

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Night Flight The story starts off with a Qualinesti elf trying to tame a griffon. Afterward he follows a group of silver dragons heading for the city of Palathas. Before making it to the city, the elf is magically grabbed off the griffon and brought down in the forrest outside the city. There he encounters a mysterious gold skinned black robed mage who seems to know a lot about Kalthanan. In addition to his name, the mage also knows that the elf is an outcast, or dark elf, from Qualanesti society. The mage also uses magic to hide his "own dark thoughts" within the anger that Kalathan feels toward the elven society that exiled him. Afterward, the mage has no memory of what happened and warns the elf to never "cross the path of Raislin Majere again". As the mage walks away, Kalthan lies in pain as he hears a voice in his head saying, "follow him". Sometime later (probably the next day), Gnatch, a gnome, is unvieling a device for Lord Amothus (the ruler of Pa

Darkness and Light: The Fist and the Fury

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After the events of the last few sessions ( A Different Keep on the Borderlands - Part 4 and The Test ), the rest of the party continued training and planning their next move. With the dragon contained, for a while anyway, the party needed to train and do some research on their next options. Hunter trained with Marcus, another local ranger in the area. Davyn, who had trained him in the past , was not available, still researching leads on Catriona , a missing friend that the party was also trying to find. Theo was able to train with Lynn, the dwarf who had trained him previously in Flotsam. Jesswin was able to train with some monks at a small shrine in the Temple District. Greybear returned to his druidic circle (several days outside of Flotsam) to train before returning to the city to meet up with everyone else. Bergin was able to train with some visiting clerics of Paladine. While Bergin is a priest of Kiri-Jolith, the two gods are closely aligned. The party tried different avenues f